How can a hard drive affect game performance?

[Netherspark]

I have a dilemma: I replaced my hard drive recently, and for some reason Wow is running like shit on the new one - fps is terrible and the game constantly 'sputters' and does something I can only describe as graphical rubber banding. But my if I put my 10 year old drive back in, Wow plays perfectly....

I can find nothing wrong with the drive itself, and outside of games there's no problems at all. Both drives have the same content, the same version of windows 7 and the exact same settings.

Can a hard drive even normally impact performance like that? I don't see how the hard drive, especially a brand new modern one, could drag performance down so drastically.

[yurano]

What model is the new HDD?

How was Windows transferred to the new HDD?

[ComputerNerd]

I would check via a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo if the disk is failing.
A "new" drive isn't prone to failing.
Could just be horrible luck.

Also see if you can benchmark them.

[Vermicious]

Did you perhaps buy a WD 'green' drive? They are made for file storage, and not performance.

[dlouhys]

A hard drive would affect load times, not "rubber banding" or porting if that is what you mean.

If this is the drive your OS and game is installed on odds are you changed game settings or drivers.

[Netherspark]

It's a 1TB Seagate Barracuda. The old one is an ancient 250GB Maxtor. The new one is technically superior in every way....

I've checked it with the Seatools program and it's apparently in perfect working order.

[Vermicious]

Did you do a reinstall of windows, or just clone the drive?

[Netherspark]

Both drives have a fresh install of Windows, with the Wow folder being copied onto both.

The drives have identical content, and identical settings.

[Vermicious]

Any background processes going on... windows update, etc?

[ComputerNerd]

Are there any other HDD heavy applications you can use to try and replicate the issue with.
Could see if it is some strange issue with just WoW.

[Zeusrules]

Both drives have a fresh install of Windows, with the Wow folder being copied onto both.

The drives have identical content, and identical settings.

Reinstall wow , I had a similar problem when I coppied wow to my new ssd. It solved it right away, hope it helps.

[Deleted]

Reinstall wow , I had a similar problem when I coppied wow to my new ssd. It solved it right away, hope it helps.

Do this. Just by copying you could have messed up some stuff internally.

[Knslyr]

I've always copy/pasted my wowfolder, I think I've only ever installed it once across all different PCs I've had since wow was released. And I've had no problems with it. However, reinstalling it could be an easy fix and I recommend doing so as the others said. Just transfer your screenshots and addons afterwards.

[Twoddle]

Could try deleting wtf and cache folders and running the repair tool before reinstalling the whole thing. Reinstalling seems pointless unless the data and executables were corrupted.

[yurano]

Reinstalling seems pointless unless the data and executables were corrupted.

Something else was probably writing to the hard drive when the WoW folder was being copied, resulting in a ridiculously fragmented install.

[Netherspark]

Something else was probably writing to the hard drive when the WoW folder was being copied, resulting in a ridiculously fragmented install.

Actually... I was copying several things at the same time, but to different partitions.